This course will review the emergence of the modern Middle East from the fall of the Ottoman Empire, at the end of the First World War to the present. We will discuss the Ottoman legacy in the region and the Western imperial impact on the creation of the Arab state system. The course will review the rise and retreat of Arab nationalism, the problems of internal cohesion of the Arab states, issues of religion and state, and the evolution of Islamist politics. We will also focus on the evolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and its impact on the region and will conclude with an in depth analysis of the “Arab Spring” by placing these contemporary revolutionary events in their historical context.
Please note that there is a second part to this course which is a direct extension of this part. We highly recommend to continue to the second part after you finish this one (https://www.coursera.org/learn/modern-middle-east-2/home/info).

From the lesson

Intro

In our first lesson, we will locate the Middle East in time and space. We will get to know the 19th-century Middle East, the structure of its society and economy as well as the dynamics of its politics. We will then look into the dramatic change that took place in the last quarter of the 18th century, that is the widening gap between Europe and the Middle East as we will dwell on the impact this change had on the future of the region. We will conclude our first lesson with a discussion on the "Eastern Question," which refers to the fate of the Ottoman Empire and the balance of power in Europe.